


Who created the colour purple?

by archerdpg



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13th Doctor - Freeform, Completed, Jodie Whittakers Doctor, OC, One-Shot, Original Story - Freeform, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Spoilers for Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, inspired by prompt, short one-shot, the doctors in a predicament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archerdpg/pseuds/archerdpg
Summary: The Doctor is yet again trapped in an unfamiliar place, with no recollection of getting there, and no foreseeable way to get out. How will she possibly do it this time?And why is there always so many questions?
Kudos: 6





	Who created the colour purple?

Who created the colour purple?  
The Doctor pondered this. What an intriguing question her strange mind had just came up with. Who created the colour purple? What do you mean “created”, there has always been the colour purple. What a silly question. Anyway.  
It suddenly occurred to her that she had yet to open her eyes. Silly Doctor. Always forgetting things. She opened her eyes.  
“Tell me what I want to know!” Clang!  
The Doctor suddenly remembered why she had closed her eyes. There was a bright and dazzling light pointed directly at her eyes. Behind the light was an alien police officer, who had decided to target the Doctor for some unknown reason yet again. And not the alien police officer you might be familiar with mind you, this one has the head of a cat, not a rhino.  
“I’m sorry, short-term memory loss.” The Doctor smiled in the general direction of the officer. “Can you repeat that?”  
“You’ve been saying that you have short-term memory loss for the last three hours. It’s not going to work again.”  
“Well uh...I see where you could be mistaken but actually that’s exactly how short-memory loss works-”  
“Quit messing about.” The large officer moved the light away from the Doctor’s face. “I know that you know pivotal information about Tyrian.”  
“Uhhh...sure.”  
The officer sighed, like he was extremely frustrated. Gee, The Doctor wondered, I wonder who was annoying him that much.  
“Alpha B, I’m sick of this. Pull me out.” The police officer said into the air, away from her. The Doctor was confused. By her observation, there was nobody else in the room with them. It was just her, strapped to a metal chair, which she was quite annoyed about but she’ll get to that later, the police officer standing across from her and a complimenting metal table. Other than the swinging light from the ceiling, the rest of the small room was empty of a soul.  
“I know I didn't get any information, but this isn’t working. Let’s try something new.” He said again, apparently getting a reply to his earlier statement. Maybe it was a hidden communication device, or telepathy?  
Suddenly, the officer started shifting, almost disappearing out of reality. Parts of him became segmented, phasing in and out of opacity. Then, he completely vanished, leaving no trace of him, like he never existed.  
The Doctor was baffled. She had seen no kind of teleport look like that before. Most of the time it looked like a funnel lifting you from where you were. The Doctor could only explain what she just saw as him being deleted from reality. Huh. Anyway.  
Now was the right time to get mad at the leather traps binding her wrists. She struggled against them, but they wouldn’t budge. They were so extremely tight that they started irritating her wrists. I know that leather is strong, but it cant be *that* strong.  
Giving up on the straps for now, The Doctor tried to focus on how she got there. Her memories were fuzzy and distorted, and had the distinct taste of being tampered with. Due to fairly recent events, the Doctor now had a major aversion to her memories being messed with. She focused harder with the knowledge that whoever did this were not Time Lord, so they must’ve left something behind. As she searched her mind, shapes and smells came to form in her senses. She saw sharp black blobs jutting into the sky, the crisp taste of rain, the smell of unpleasantness, and the constant buzzing of flying cars.  
The Doctor remembered now. She had decided to go to New New York, or technically New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York to get a cup of her favourite drink in the universe, (which is the Intergalatic Buzzjito with a dash of Punjaberry, only served in a replica of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S coffee shop near New Queens), when she suddenly felt a prick on her neck, then darkness.  
Now that’s very strange, thought the Doctor. Why would they erase the most mundane memories. They don’t want me knowing where I am. She was surprised that the tranquilizer they used was able to knock her out, but then not surprising because the Intergalatic Buzzjito has a nasty side-effect of making the immune system very susceptible to low level tranquillisers. Oops. Teach me for drinking on the job.  
“Doctor.”  
She was startled by the sudden booming voice that seemed like it was coming from nowhere.  
“There’s no point in struggling. It’s impossible to get out of those restraints.”  
“But they’re just leather!” She said to the nothingness.  
The voice laughed.  
“I’m afraid that we’re going to keep you here longer.”  
“Why?”  
“Because you haven't given us the information that we want.”  
“And that information is?”  
The voice was silent, until she heard the distinct sound of pages turning.  
“Y’know Doctor, this file says that you're a master genius Time Lord from outer space. Is that correct?”  
“I guess so, yes.”  
“Hmm...we stole this data from the last Dalek matrix hard-drive. It’s pretty extensive. Goes all the way from earth to pocket universes.”  
“I like to get around.”  
“And here’s a list of your companions. My, my Doctor…”  
“Like I said, I like to get around.”  
“And yet, throughout this entire novel of a file, it does not mention that the Doctor has short-term memory loss, except after regeneration, which we know that you have not done recently.”  
Uh-oh.  
“So you can’t lie to us anymore Doctor. We know everything.”  
“Liar.”  
The Doctor heard a huff. “Liar?”  
“You’re saying that you know everything, yet you’ve had me in this interrogation room for hours about something you don’t know. You’re a big fat liar.”  
“Enough of this.”  
The room went pitch black. The light hanging from the ceiling stopped swinging. The particles in the air stopped. The entire room was frozen, except for the beating of her hearts. This particularly sucked because the Doctor was mid-blink.  
“We know that you have knowledge of the Tyrian empire. There are records of you being there. Everybody thought the data was wrong because the Tyrian empire fell thousands of years ago, but we knew better. You will tell us about them.”  
The Doctor tried to speak but her tongue couldn’t move. How infuriating.  
“You *wil*l tell us about them, because if you don’t, we will keep you here forever. In this small, cramped room. And the only person you could talk to is me.”  
The Doctor was disappointed that the cat man from earlier would apparently never be coming back.  
“Do you understand?”  
What an idiot.  
Just as quickly as before, the air started to move again. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and finally blinked fully. She looked up.  
“What do you want to know? Because if it’s about the rich and vibrant culture of the empire, or their history I’d be happy to tell you but if it’s about what I think it is…”  
“The treasure, Doctor.”  
“Of course.”  
“Their ancient texts speak of a great treasure that they discovered. Something that changed their lives forever. Something so powerful that it changed their entire identity.”  
“Let me guess, you want it because you want to better the human race and-”  
“There are theories that can be used as a powerful weapon.”  
The Doctor rolled her eyes.  
“Of course you want it for war. Gosh I love you humans but you're ever so predictable.”  
“Doctor.” The voice said in a very ‘no funny business’ attitude.  
“Looming voice in the sky.” Said the Doctor in the exact same tone of voice.  
There was suddenly a strange light flickering from the corner of the table. The Doctor was barely able to catch it, because it was in the corner of her eye, but it was definitely there. She made an effort not to look at it, so the looming voice wouldn’t notice. Even though it was blurry hard to focus on, The Doctor observed that it was very similar to what she saw before with the police officer. The corner of the table appeared to misplace itself in a jerky manner, flashing with faint colours.  
“Do you know where it is?”  
“Huh,” said the Doctor, slightly distracted until she pulled herself back, “Oh yes of course. But you’re asking the wrong question.”  
“Tell us where it is.”  
Her mind was going a million miles per second. Trying to fit all the pieces together. Strange visions, unbreakable leather, memory fading, the freezing of time,“keep you here forever…  
“Nuh-uh-uh! I won’t answer that question. Ask me the other question.”  
“What other question?”  
Displaced from reality, phasing in and out….  
“What do you mean, ‘what other question’? You’re thinking it right now. Go on. Ask me.”  
There was a short silence as the voice pondered her statement. While it was distracted, The Doctor started wriggling in her binds.  
Bright lights...shifting...almost like it was...glitching…  
It clicked. The Doctor smirked.  
“...What is the treasure?” Asked the voice.  
“BINGO! That’s the right question. Because the Tyrian race were very cryptic, weren’t they. Spoke in cryptic codes, on top of iambic pentameter, on top of some more vague stuff. So translating it has always been a little bit hard. The words come out a bit wrong sometimes.”  
As she was blabbering on, The Doctor started focusing hard on the leather straps. Now that she knew what it was, she could beat it.  
“Somewhere along the way, the supposed treasure started being described as ‘a great power’ or ‘a all-great force’ which couldn’t be more incorrect. The ‘treasure’ was completely different.”  
The Doctor sent all her attention to the straps. If she could just find it…  
“What was your name by the way?” She asked.  
“Me?”  
“Do you see anyone else in this room?”  
“...You do not have the right to that information.”  
“Well then Booming Voice in the Sky. Are you familiar with the combination of me and traps?”  
“Unfortunately yes. I read that impressive monologue you gave.”  
“Well I’m happy to inform you that the exact same thing happens when you put me,” The Doctor suddenly sprang free of the leather straps, which fizzled away in zeros and ones once she was not touching it anymore,” Inside a virtual reality chamber.”  
The Doctor heard alarms which were obviously important, but they weren’t coming from inside the chamber.  
“What have you done?!” Screamed Booming Voice.  
“Oh it’s simple really. Once I realised I was inside of a construct, I was able to mould the reality around me. Similar to lucid dreaming, except it's a lot more complicated.”  
“You can’t do that!”  
“Oh yes I can. I just did.”  
The room around her melted, revealing a landscape of green tiles. The base landscape for a chamber.  
“I do congratulate you though. It was quite convincing of reality. Except there’s always a mistake. You made a detrimental one.”  
“What?”  
“You put me inside it.” The Doctor was pleased that she was able to use that line again. It was brilliant. A wooden door materialised in front of the Doctor.  
The blaring alarms from Booming Voices end was joined by other loud voices, all panicking.  
The Doctor sighed.  
“Fine. Do you want to know what the treasure is?”  
The voices quieted very quickly. All that could be heard was the alarms and The Doctors soft breathing. The silence was deafening, and the Doctor was only doing it because she loved the drama. Then she finally spoke.  
“The Tyrians were a very visual race. They were enamoured by the appearance of the natural world and its beauty. They perfected the crafting of paint and created groundbreaking pieces of art.”  
Even though the Doctor couldn’t see them, she knew they were listening attentively.  
“The thing about the Tyrian planet is that it was naturally yellow. The ground was made of sand, the sky glowed a bright neon yellow, even the bark of the trees were a deep, ochre yellow. This defined them for centuries. Until their technology grew and they dug underground. They dug deep underground, through many layers of rock and sand. This is when they found the treasure.”  
The Doctor could practically hear their excitement.  
“During their digging, they found a specific mineral called Murex, hidden for millenia. Being the visual artists that they were, they crushed it up and made it into paint.”  
They were on the tips of their seats. The Doctor looked up.  
“It was purple.”  
“...what?”  
“The treasure. It was purple. The colour purple. They had never seen it before. They had no idea that there were other colours than reds and yellows. They had no concept of cooler colours. It was a phenomenon, ground-breaking to them.”  
“So you’re saying...that the great treasure that they describe, the treasure that ‘re-defined their identity, was...the colour purple?”  
“Spot on! See! Sometimes you gotta think smaller. Not everything is a weapon.”  
Booming Voice was silent.  
“Anyway. Thanks for the chat, I needed a bit of adrenaline.”  
The Doctor twisted the door knob and walked out, and the simulation collapsed behind her.  
The Doctor pondered the question again. Is it possible for someone to create a colour? Technically the Tyrians created a colour, but they actually discovered it. The Doctor was bored. Time to do something exciting.  
“I’m going to invent a new colour!” She exclaimed to the TARDIS.  
It moaned in response. Here we go again.

**Author's Note:**

> hey cowboys  
> if you enjoyed this shout me a kudos and ill try to pump out some more  
> i havent really written in this fandom before so go easy on me but i would love to hear any thots people might have  
> i lov dr who 
> 
> man this social isolation has gotten to me so much that ive started writing fanfciton again


End file.
